I Stayed
by Erin Kaye Hashet
Summary: A glimpse inside Luke's mind, post-Nag Hammadi


Title: I Stayed

Author: Erin Kaye Hashet

Rating: PG

Feedback: EKHashet@hotmail.com

Spoilers: Through Nag Hammadi

Summary: A glimpse inside Luke's mind, post-Nag Hammadi

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue

Author's Note: My first attempt at GG fic. Normally I don't even _read_ it, so we'll see how this goes. 

I Stayed

by Erin Kaye Hashet

                   "Families! They're just messes! It's like a spilled drink that keeps spilling, and you got to keep cleaning it up. You scrub and you scrub, and you just can't get the stain up." 

                   I didn't say that out of frustration. I meant it. I really did. 

                   I guess you could say I never had a happy family. Two parents, a sister three years younger than me. A father who ran a hardware store. A mother who barely talked to anyone, including my father. That was the way she was- polite, quiet, didn't like to make waves, didn't like to admit it when anything was wrong. She didn't even tell us she was sick until it was clear that things were pretty bad. I was ten when she died- cancer. 

                   And then there was my father. Bill Danes, proprietor of William's Hardware and fine, upstanding citizen of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. War re-enactor, devoted father, all-around nice guy. As formal as their marriage had been, his wife's death devastated him. He tried not to show it, but I knew. We've never been big on expressing our emotions in our family. God knows I'm not, and I got that from my father. He wasn't big on smiling, he didn't have much of a sense of humor, and he wasn't what you would call touchy-feely. But I can't say he wasn't there for me, or for anyone else for that matter. He went to all my baseball games, he defended Liz whenever she got into trouble at school, he helped to put two of my cousins through college. If anyone in town needed help with anything, hardware-related or otherwise, he'd be there in a second. He was something of a constant in Stars Hollow: always there, no matter what. Someone who could be depended on. He'd lived in the town his whole life. When other people left for New York City or even Hartford, for anything bigger and better, he stayed. 

                   I graduated from Stars Hollow High, an average student, decent baseball player. Went to Southern Connecticut State and got a degree in business. I was planning on leaving town, of moving on to the bigger and better things that my father never got to. But it was that year, just a few months after I graduated, that my father died. He had cancer, too. Twice in one family. What are the odds? Liz was nineteen, barely out of high school and pregnant with that idiot Jimmy Mariano's kid. I had to take care of things with my father's will, and right after Liz had the baby, Jimmy left. So I stayed. 

                   Eventually Liz left, too. And so did the hardware store, which I replaced with that damn diner where I slowly kill Stars Hollow's population with red meat and nearly-illegal doses of caffeine. But I stayed.

                   And I'd never admit this to anyone, but I kind of let the town of Stars Hollow become my family. Hey, it worked. They depended on me to be there behind the counter with the flannel shirt and the backwards baseball cap. And I depended on all of them- Patty with her cigarettes and ridiculous stories, Taylor being obnoxious and control-freaky, Kirk…being himself. Like a family, they often get on my nerves. Like a family, they often make me roll my eyes- all of those damn town ceremonies they're always holding. Like a family, they're always there. But unlike a family, they're not a spilled drink. I'm not obligated to clean up the mess. 

                   But I do anyway. 

                   I don't know. I guess I'm just my father's son. I don't run a hardware store, but I'm no less of a fix-it man. I do have this need to fix things, to repair things that are broken. If people need help, I help them. And this is Stars Hollow- problems aren't usually any more complicated than a broken window. I can deal with that. I can fix that.

                   Then came Rachel. 

                   I really thought I was in love with Rachel. Maybe I was, once. She was beautiful, bright, vibrant, interesting. She always had something to say. I didn't know what the hell she saw in me, but she saw something. Stupid me, I thought whatever she saw would be enough to make her stay. 

                   Most people didn't know this, but I proposed. I proposed to her one night at the diner after everyone else had left. Rachel had been smiling, but after I proposed, the smile slowly faded. "What's wrong?" I asked her.

                   "Luke," she said slowly, "what do you see in our future?" She looked up at me. "You see us married, together- doing what?"

                   I was starting to sweat. "I see us…I see us doing the same thing we do now, I mean, that's working, right?"

                   "You think it is, Luke?" I studied Rachel's face. "You think this is working? You running this diner, me running off to take photos all over the place?"

                   I didn't know what to say. "I guess it's not, then."

                   "Could you ever leave this place, Luke?" she asked me, gesturing to the diner around her. "Could you give all this up and travel around the world with me?"

                   I was silent as I tried to imagine it, and failed. I couldn't leave the diner. As much as its people and traditions annoy me sometimes, I couldn't leave Stars Hollow, either. I just wasn't meant for those bigger and better things I used to think I wanted. I was destined to be small.

                   And Rachel left. And that was a problem I couldn't fix. I closed the diner for a day, said I was sick. But then I had to get back to work. It killed me to have to see all those people every day, all happy and perky from the coffee. I just wanted to scream and break things and throw coffee into their happy, perky faces.

                   This happened to be around the same time Lorelai Gilmore moved into the house she lives in now. Lorelai had been running the Independence Inn for a few years at that point, and apparently had just saved up enough money to buy this house. While she'd been living out in the back behind the inn, she'd come by the diner occasionally, but she hadn't always had the money for it. But I remembered her. It was hard to forget someone like her. Even without the gallons of coffee she bought from me, she was hyper and bubbly and talked a mile a minute. She came sometimes with her little daughter, Rory. I've never been a big fan of kids, but Rory was a cute little thing. Took after her mom. Anyway, Lorelai and Rory were moving into this house right around the time Rachel left, and I'd been helping them move things in and stuff. 

                   About a week after Rachel left, I was lying alone in bed, wondering if there was anyone on Earth I meant something to. Oh, anyone can serve coffee, but Liz was in New York and she hadn't called in months. Rachel was God-knows-where, better off without me. And there was no family in Stars Hollow. 

                   I opened my desk drawer and pulled out the gun my father had left behind. He'd had his musket buried with him, but this one he'd kept. I picked it up and stared at it. 

                   People think I'm some kind of pessimist or cynic or something, I think, but I'm not, really. If anything, I'm an idealist. But a realist at the same time, if that makes any sense. I guess what I mean is that I have this idea of the way things should be, but I always think that if they're going to be that way, I'll have to make them that way myself. 

                   But Rachel was gone and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I stared down the barrel of that gun and wondered if I wasn't looking at my solution right there. 

                   But then the phone rang, which I wasn't expecting, especially at three o'clock in the morning. Surprised, I went over and answered it. "Hello."

                   "Luke! We're cold."

                   It was so unexpected that it took a minute for the voice to register. "Lorelai?"

                   "Luke, sorry to call like this, but there's a window in my house that's stuck and it's open a crack and in any minute we're going to have Santa Claus and penguins running around here. Except those two things are at opposite poles…but that's how cold this house is, we'll have them both! Even if it defies logic, which I guess it does but at three in the morning what doesn't, right? And is Santa Claus too fat to run anyway? I guess he has the elves to run for him…so scratch that, we'll have _elves_ and penguins running around here so could you please help me with it?"

                   Three in the morning. Even without coffee she was like that.

                   I let out a deep breath, bringing myself back into the real world. "Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'll be right there."

                   Years later, I now know that I would never have gone through with it. I actually have to laugh thinking about it. The idea of a suicide in Stars Hollow is absurd.  No one would have any idea what to do. But at the time, all I could think was, _If__ Lorelai hadn't called…_

                   I got rid of the gun the next day. The next time I saw her I gave her some bread I made. It was ridiculous- you stopped me from killing myself, so here's some bread? But at the time it was all I could think of. She looked stunned. "Luke," she said, "you're the one who's been helping me out. I should be giving _you_ bread."

                   I waved my hand. "Don't worry about it," I said. "Don't worry about it."

                   Lorelai! Oh, Lorelai. I know she grew up in Hartford but her personality is 100% Stars Hollow. And in so many ways we're nothing alike. So why do I love her?

                   Yes, that's what I just said, and I'm not going to say it again. I would never admit it to anyone. But I do. There's no other way to explain why I lied to her about buying a house with Nicole. Yes, I often stay over at Nicole's house, but we're not living together. Some part of me, I guess, wanted her to get all upset and indignant and why-didn't-you-tell-me-about-this. I acted annoyed at her, sure, but I was really more annoyed at myself for letting it _matter_. Lorelai's not my wife, Nicole is. 

                   Oh, Nicole. Great person. Very nice. Very easy to talk to. Would be a good friend. Absolutely nothing like the Stars Hollow people, but also not about to go off to foreign countries like Rachel. But I don't love her. And I'm still not used to thinking of her as my wife. When Liz said I could give the earrings to my wife, it took a minute for it to register who she was talking about. Then she added, "Or Lorelai." So I went with that option. 

                   Liz. The sister whose drink just keeps spilling. And what always frustrated me about her was that she could have been so much more than she was. I mean, I've never been that smart- you know how in school they give you those aptitude tests to take and there's that line telling you where you are in relation to everybody else? Mine was always pretty close to the middle, sometimes slightly above. But Liz's was way, way at the top. If she'd been more ambitious she could have been valedictorian. But in high school it wasn't cool to be smart. Dabbling in drugs and sleeping around was cooler, I guess. She barely graduated, then gave birth to Jess. And then she took off for New York. Living proof that the city doesn't always mean bigger and better things. Sometimes it just means bad boyfriends and dead-end jobs. And living proof that not all teenage single mothers are like Lorelai, who became manager of an inn and raised a sweet kid instead of an angry wannabe rebel. 

                   Oh, Jess. I would never have chosen to have a seventeen-year-old kid to be responsible for, but I can't say I hated having him around. In a strange way, I love the kid. I see so much of Liz in him: the same wasted intelligence, the same rebel-without-a-cause attitude she had at his age. Maybe I kind of looked at my time spent with him as a second chance for Liz. And the idealist in me kind of wanted to see only the best in him, wanted to believe he was working at Wal-Mart like a good kid but not skipping school to do it. And there's really a lot about Jess to like. Hell, considering who his parents are, it's a wonder he's not _more_ messed up. 

                   But then he took off. Unlike Liz, he didn't even graduate, and I think he's even smarter than she was at his age. He left Rory without even a goodbye, and as soon as that happened I knew I failed. If I'd paid more attention, if I'd set more boundaries…I'd spent so much time worrying he'd turn out like Liz. Instead he turned out like his father- an abandoner. 

                   Rory. I told her mother once that I cared more about Rory than about myself, and I really meant it. To Jess, I felt like an uncle, a guardian, someone who cared about him. To Rory I feel like a dad. I think I told Lorelai once that I would consider having kids if I met the right person. The right person, of course, would be Lorelai, and the kids, ideally, would be just like Rory. There aren't too many people who could reduce me to the sappy sentence I'm about to put out there now: I feel like I would fix the entire world if I could for either of the Gilmores. 

                   And then back came Jess. And I couldn't believe what he said. That I don't really help anyone. That people are better off without me. Okay, maybe those weren't his exact words, but he may as well have said that. 

                   Jess is by no means a perfect kid, maybe not even a good one. He's angry, he's selfish, he's lazy. But he's not cruel. I can't believe he said that to purposely hurt me. He was angry, maybe frustrated. But regardless of his intention, his words made me feel like I hadn't felt since the night I stared down the barrel of that gun. I felt useless. I felt like I didn't know myself anymore. 

                   But this time I didn't have a gun. Just some booze. And once I was drunk, where did I find myself? Of course- back at Lorelai's. Because when I can't fix myself, she can fix me. Complete with Barbie band-aids and stories about how Liz looks up to me. Once again, she kept me sane. Just like always. 

                   After the Firelight Festival, after I gave Lorelai the earrings, I went back up to my apartment. I stared out the window at the people of Stars Hollow, the people who would be coming the next morning to get their caffeine fixes. Who would ask me to fix things. Who would be all right. Liz thought Jess would be all right. She always was more of an optimist than me, but maybe she was right. Maybe we'd all be all right. Maybe I would fix things, maybe things would fix themselves. But we'd be fine. 

                   I went to my bed and laid there, and until morning, there I stayed. 

-End

Thanks for reading. I hope reading it was as much fun for you as writing it was for me. PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!!! 


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